Lindsey German looks ahead

Whenever the next election is – and some are now putting it as early as spring of next year – it’s clear that it will be one of the dirtiest and unedifying campaigns in memory. The Tories are completely incapable of offering new policies which can benefit working class people and now they’re not even trying. Instead they will push ‘stop the boats’ and other attacks on migrants; try to make capital from opposing a range of ‘green’ policies as they did in the Uxbridge byelection, through for example abandoning the phasing out of petrol and diesel cars by 2030; and by fomenting prejudice over LGBT issues, including trans rights.

If you add to this continued propaganda over crime, a strong emphasis on nationalism and patriotism, and enthusiasm for more war and militarism, then it is a mix designed to appeal to the worst prejudices and to stoke the most irrational fears. This, the Tories hope, will sufficiently motivate their core vote and return a bankrupt, corrupt and useless government to yet another term where it will preside over further largesse for the rich and misery for the rest of us.

This still seems an outside chance, because the Tories have little going for them. The polls still show the government as highly unpopular, and the recent byelections demonstrated a very big abstention by the Tory vote. But it’s also true that Labour’s actual performances in elections have often fallen short of the polls. Time and again, even Keir Stammer’s allies admit that he is not inspiring or motivating people to turn out for him. If this is true for those who support Starmer, those who backed Corbyn in 2017 and 2019 are finding it increasingly hard to motivate themselves to support Labour. The left in Labour is increasingly disillusioned by the permanent witch-hunt mode pursued by the leadership.

But there is a much more fundamental problem facing Labour and the left in general. And that is that Labour has adopted such a timid approach to its political commitments that there only need to be a whiff of criticism from the Tories for the shadow cabinet to run scared.

The most egregious case of this was Starmer’s refusal to change the two child policy on benefits – a thoroughly retrograde, sexist and racist measure which condemns many of the poorest families to even greater poverty. Then there was the public criticism of Sadiq Khan’s Ulez scheme for purely opportunist electoral reasons. But it is now a matter of course on every topic for Labour to promise nothing and stress that it needs to deal with the economic crisis first – in other words that  workers will have to make further sacrifices. It’s hard to imagine that this is going to be popular with voters so it’s entirely possible that Starmer’s plans will fail.

Assuming that it doesn’t and that he forms a government, there will be political turmoil from the word go as expectations of workers clash with the financial rectitude of the Labour leadership and its fundamentally conservative attitudes. The same anti union laws and repressive measures against protest will be used by a Labour government as under a Tory one.

What then should be the strategy of the left? Firstly to build the current struggles as strongly as possible, in order to strengthen the unions and left wing movements in the face of reactionary attacks.

Secondly we need a much clearer class approach to the ‘culture wars’ questions which doesn’t allow the right to make the running on them. This means for example with Ulez focusing much more on the big polluters and not financially penalising some of the poorest car drivers. Sadiq Khan should be repeating over and over again that the totally inadequate scrappage scheme for polluting cars is a result of the Tory government refusing to fund it.

We must defend LGBT rights as fundamentals to liberation, but at the same time not assume that everyone who doesn’t agree on them is a bigot who can’t be won over. If we look generally at working class attitudes on all these questions there is a general acceptance on many issues – eg the need to deal with climate change, or the right of people to live outside of the heterosexual norm – but also disagreement on some. These have to be addressed not written off or sneered at.

The third question that increasingly arises is the need for an electoral alternative to Labour. There will be a number of serious independent socialists standing in upcoming elections and they deserve our support. The latest to do so is the former Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad. In most cases they have been forced out of Labour as part of the witch-hunt and represent an alternative to Starmer.

I have always taken the view that the formation of a new party of the left will be much more likely after a victorious Labour election than before. That is still the case. But Starmer’s attack on the left is also creating a situation where those who might otherwise have stayed in Labour now find that they have nothing left to lose. Any success by them will be the basis for something new and that’s important.

But here too we need to be aware of the limitations of alternative left parties. They are extremely important expressions of discontent with traditional social democracy abandoning its old policies and embracing neoliberalism. But the examples across Europe show that they have not lived up to their earlier expectations or success. This is for a combination of reasons but central to them has been the failure to confront the state, and much too much reliance on electoral success rather than on shifting the balance of class forces.

So while we should do everything to support these new beginnings we should also remember the need to build a Marxist left which recognises where real power lies in society. And we should do all we can to build struggles based on the power of workers to confront those who hold power at present.

This week: I will be cheering on the Amazon strikers in Rugeley and Coventry and hope that the protest on Saturday is as big as possible.